You ain't wrong. I know this entire trilogy is partly a farewell to the original trilogy heroes, but I still see them getting far too little screen-time. Han dominates the film pretty much and even he didn't show up until the 40 minute mark (IIRC). Leia has a small role in the film and doesn't show up up until when....more than an hour in? Luke and R2 are basically not even in TFA and 3PO is practically a cameo. I thought Chewie received proper screen-time, but the horrible error of having Leia and him not console each other after Han's death is unforgivable.
In TLJ they introduce this casino city and Johnson says after the fact that he couldn't come up with a way to incorporate Lando in the film at all? Really? Baffling. Hell, couldn't he have been on the receiving end of Leia's distress call while they were on Krait? Something, c'mon!
Now we go into EP IX and the big three are all gone already. For the most part, I like these films, but it is strange how they're piece-mealing this trilogy together.
And now I'm babbling. Like old times.

Nah, you're making a lot of sense. And that's definitely like old times.

I bought it on Wednesday here in the states and I haven't felt an urgency to watch the film itself, which I found very strange, considering I only saw it once in theaters and knew it required multiple viewings for me to get a real good handle on it. That bothers me....hell, I watched the extremely mediocre Justice League 3 times in 5 days once I had that on blu-ray.

That said, I did watch some of the extras....some decent deleted scenes in there which would've served the film better than that bloated Canto Bight sequence.

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

I bought it on Wednesday here in the states and I haven't felt an urgency to watch the film itself, which I found very strange, considering I only saw it once in theaters and knew it required multiple viewings for me to get a real good handle on it. That bothers me....hell, I watched the extremely mediocre Justice League 3 times in 5 days once I had that on blu-ray.

I most certainly will watch it again and again, but I am unsure just how much overall let alone when that will start. Right now, I can easily see myself popping in TFA at any given time for a viewing, and I couldn't wait to do so once I had the blu-ray. Strangely, I have only watched Rogue One once on blu-ray, and as I already mentioned and I really dug that flick. And of course, I have yet to watch TLJ.

For TLJ, I was unable to get to the theater for more than one viewing, although I absolutely wanted to because I felt that it required multiple viewings to absorb it all, but fuck....I've watched JUSTICE LEAGUE three times since I've had it and I'm nearly more tempted to watch that again rather go out of my way to pop in TLJ. And Justice League is not a good movie at all.

I dunno, I'll pop that blu-ray cherry soon enough and maybe that'll change everything, but I just dumbfounded by how the usual obsessiveness isn't taking over.

"All right, look, there's only one "Return," okay, and it ain't "of the King," it's "of the Jedi."

For TLJ, I was unable to get to the theater for more than one viewing, although I absolutely wanted to because I felt that it required multiple viewings to absorb it all, but fuck....I've watched JUSTICE LEAGUE three times since I've had it and I'm nearly more tempted to watch that again rather go out of my way to pop in TLJ. And Justice League is not a good movie at all.

As much as it was tampered with, JL is better. And it's more fun. I bought it and will be watching it, even if not as much as BvS.

I didn't care much for TFA's chosen story post-ROTJ, but it's fun and has a lot more energy to it. I object to it, but will still watch it, such as during a marathon at any point in the future. I doubt I'll buy TLJ, and I can't imagine any reason to see it again.

Last edited by borgmatrix on April 3rd, 2018, 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I bought it on Wednesday here in the states and I haven't felt an urgency to watch the film itself, which I found very strange, considering I only saw it once in theaters and knew it required multiple viewings for me to get a real good handle on it. That bothers me....hell, I watched the extremely mediocre Justice League 3 times in 5 days once I had that on blu-ray.

That said, I did watch some of the extras....some decent deleted scenes in there which would've served the film better than that bloated Canto Bight sequence.

TLJ isn't released on home media until the 16th here in Sweden, but I must say that I really have no desire to watch it again. I really, really disliked the movie and with Jar Jar Abrams doing Episode IX... I don't know... Kathleen Kennedy might be a fine producer, but she doesn't strike me as a storyteller who can hold the franchise together nor as a visionary.

Mags, Disney will currently be happy with her performance Mags as bot Ep 7 & 8 have been box office successes. The test will be ep 9 which won't feature the big 3 in any significant role (I suspect that Luke's ghost will make an appearance).

I've watched TFA and R1 several time the latter more than the first. I was hoping to watch TLJ last weekend but other plans stopped that. Maybe this weekend, fingers crossed.

One thing TLJ (and also TFA) proves is that masks puppetry isn't always better than CG: The Canto Bight scene features the worst masks and puppetry ever shown in a Star Wars movie... Heck, some of the designs are more in line with Men in Black than Star Wars.

The Last Jedi was released on Blu-Ray last Monday. I posted this elsewhere, and I was a bit hesitant to repost it here, but these are some of my beefs and nitpicks with the movie (I've consolidated it and added a few things). I haven't gone out of my way to find things to complain about, but I compiled this as a means to understand why I didn't like the movie:

- What was the galaxy's reaction to the destruction of the seat of government in TFA? Like in TFA, there's no worldbuilding whatsoever in TLJ. If no-one cares about the Resistance or Rebels, why would we? I'm sure Episode IX will begin showing the Rebels in force without any explanation, because that's something the ST actually has been good at...

- The so-called "humor" in the movie, from the beginning to the end, is awful. The worst is the awful treatment of General Hux, who went from a very young, but still menacing, Fascist-like military leader to a joke. From the ridiculous "General Hugs", "I'll hold" and "Your Mother"-'joke' to the scene in the Gorilla walker... This is a Star Wars movie, not Spaceballs 2. Took me right out of the movie at both the theater and at home (but then I knew it was coming of course). Is Johnson familiar with the word 'tone'?

Speaking of the General Hugs scene, why didn't the Dreadnought fire at Poe's ship the moment he showed up? Why did Hux allow himself to be distracted by Poe?

- The boring and minimalistic version of the chase in the nBSG episode "33" that also changes the rule for Star Wars (bubble shields á la Star Trek and turbolasers that go in a curve). The chase is also contrived: Why can't some of the Star Destroyers jump ahead of the "fleet" and cut it off? Why don't use some of the TIE-fighters that could disable the bridge to disable their engines? It's neither exciting nor visually interesting and is completely devoid of energy. It's simply the most boring space battle of the saga so far.

- Admiral Party Dress not doing anything to inspire confidence in her puny force or at least saying that she has a plan of some kind. In that context, Poe's action makes sense. Holdo was a poor leader.

- Holdo, besides how the character was used to create meaningless drama as I hinted at above, was a very ambiguous character. To have her commit the act of self-sacrifice was just... Why not Ackbar? Or both? At least there would've been someone along who the audience has some connection with.

- The hyperspace ramming. If it could be done, why hasn't it been done with unmanned ships earlier? Why bother with the fighters entering the Death Star in ROTJ, let's put the crew in escape pods and run Home One into it... Heck, you could build a whole lot cheaper weapons than Death Stars and the Starkiller.

And following the ramming, how did Rose and Finn, who were about to be executed with Phasma standing right next to them about to give the order, end up being on practically the opposite side of the hangar from her in the next shot?

- The character assassination of Luke Skywalker. I've never been much of a fan of Luke, but what was done with his character in TLJ was just awful and then I don't refer to Grumpy Luke...

Luke Skywalker, who never knew his father Anakin, but still was able to sense that there was good in Vader, considered to murder his own nephew in cold blood! It's quite frankly outrageous! Luke's character had become one of redemption by ROTJ. If Snoke and Rey could sense Kylo's conflict, how come Luke didn't? Not only that, but he actually LIED to Rey on how Ben finally went over to the Dark Side and blamed everyone else for his predicament. In short: He's also a coward besides being a liar (it wasn't even a justified "a different point of view"-lie).

And when did Snoke came into the picture? They speak as if they knew him.

Ultimately, Luke was wasted in TLJ and the ST (so far). He's unrecognizable as a character, doesn't teach Rey anything and his sacrifice at the end was bland at best (he was only a projection for crying out loud). We didn't get to see Luke do much of anything! He wasn't even needed for the story.

And if Luke didn't want to be found, why the map? There were so many setups in TFA that weren't followed up on.

Luke acts apparently indifferent to the plight of Leia. That's just plain... The deleted scene with the Caretaker village should have been left in the movie. It would've been the best scene of the movie and it would've shown Rey lashing out at Luke because of that fact. We also didn't get to see Luke's reaction to Han's death. An extremely bad cut. And Rey translates for Chewie?

And Luke died from what? His death was just as inane (or worse) as Padmé's (the difference is that the latter was poignant). I was reminded that Kylo says to Rey during their first Force Skype session that "It would kill you!", but...

- I can't see Adam Driver as the son of Han and Leia. He does a fair job, buuut. And what happened to Kylo's Vader fetish that was a point in TFA?

- The Resistance, hrm, the Rebellion or whatever as there's no consistency, was down to 400 people on four ships. George Lucas doesn't understand scale expressed in numbers, but he can convey it visually. Neither Abrams or Johnson manages that. 400 people on a galactic scale is just plain ridiculous. There are about one quadrillion ants on Earth and it's like a single ant trying to take over all the other stacks in the world. Abrams and Johnson have made the GFFA feel VERY, VERY small.

- The Leia Poppins scene. What was Johnson thinking when he wrote that scene? A person exposed to vacuum unprepared for such an extended period wouldn't have survived. I thought it would be a beautiful death scene for Leia, but instead...

- The Canto Blight [sic!] scene. It didn't lead to anything, was completely unnecessary and just dragged the movie out. It's indicative of a much bigger problem: Johnson couldn't build the story. I have been critical of JJ Abrams, but at least that's something he manages to do and in hindsight, TFA is a much better movie (even though it's a "light" remake of ANH).

The Canto Bight sequence also featured not only some of the worst alien designs for Star Wars, but also some of the worst-looking puppets and masks (I say even worse than in the Cantina scene in which most were quite good), showing that they're not inheretly better than CG. One would think they would try to appear inconspicuous, but instead they land the ship where they're not supposed to and wears clothes into the casino that make them stand out like a sour thumb. In other words, they drew unneeded attention to themselves. And why the ridiculous hologram sequence with Maz running around like Super Mario? Johnson said he thought of using Lando as the codebreaker, but why not have used him as the one leading Finn and Rose to the codebreaker?

Speaking of the codebreaker, Finn and Rose attempted to flee Canto Blight without the codebreaker. Huh?

And the profiteering? With such disparity between the forces, the whole "making money buy selling arms to both sides" is just plain ridiculous. If Johnson had any understanding of scale, then it would have been a point. Alas, he has not. The anti-capitalistic message comes across as forced and silly (and considering the company which produced the movie...).

BB-8 disabling and muffling the guards... How?

- How did DJ know about the cloaked shuttles? Poe didn't say anything about them being cloaked.

- What the heck does Luke mean when he says about Rey's strength in the Force that he has "only felt the raw strength once before" and that was in Ben Solo? What about Vader? What about Palpatine?

- The Yoda scene. A puppet was made from the original cast, but it doesn't look that good. Apparently it had some CG "enhancements". And why Crazy Yoda? Yoda tested Luke in TESB, we have not seen him act that way before or since. And ghost-Yoda summoning lightning? Again changing the rules...

- The Rey/Snoke scene was devoid of tension. Throwing Rey around like a ragdoll didn't help to create any tension either (it mostly felt over the top and ridiculous) and the dialogue was a rewrite from ROTJ. Oh, and "Young fool!" is that some sort of common expression among Dark Side users in the GFFA?

- The "whooases" and "YES" from Finn was annoying in TFA and repeating it in this movie felt out of place and it's not any better that Rey goes "whoa" as well. It's the "yippiee" of the ST.

- So, "Mayday" is the emergency procedure word in the GFFA as well? *Facepalm*

- Phasma ended up like Boba Fett... What a waste!

- I'm not even going to touch Snoke... And Lucas's concept for the balance of the Force has obviously been changed.

- Where did Rey learn to swim? And how the heck could she best Luke? I'm sorry, I defended the character of Rey after TFA, but she's a Mary Sue just as Poe (the worst of the main characters in my opinion) is a Gary Stu.

- I liked Finn in TFA, but the "I was a janitor and somehow I know everything there is to know about Starkiller/the hyperspace tracking device" has gotten old. There's not much substance to his character

- Why did the ski speeders have a pole? So that the First Order walkers could see them stirring up the salt and their heading so that the walkers could aim better and get a better shot?

Speaking of the walkers, where did they come from? Snoke's ultra-mega Star Destroyer was cut in half by Admiral Party Dress, destroying most of the fleet accompanying it.

And Finn's line: "Oh, they hate that ship! [The Millennium Falcon]". An awful and silly line.

- Rose running into Finn's ski speeder. A completely idiotic scene! And people complains about Lucas's dialogue, but what about: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love." Besides the awful dialogue (the single worst line of the saga), she ran into him with full speed and almost killed him herself! And that kiss... *Shudders*

How the heck could Finn drag Rose back to the base? They were right next to the gorilla walkers, the regular AT-ATs and a bunch of Stormtroopers that can be seen walking, escorting the battering ram cannon.

And the battering ram cannon... That concept was as inane and unnecessary as the dreadnought.

- The Resistance or Rebels or whatever are down to a number of people who can fit inside the Millennium Falcon, which is now also the only ship of the Rebellion, at the end of the movie. Sweet...

- TLJ is the only saga movie without a lightsaber duel.

- The ending completely breaks tradition with Star Wars insofar it's not central characters that are featured. Also, R2 and C-3PO* featured in every ending but ROTS but that has been forgotten in the ST where they have been reduced to cameos and nostalgia. R2 and C-3PO were also relegated to cameos.

And who told Broom boy about Luke and Kylo? There wasn't anybody around to watch.

* C-3PO was of course absent from TPM as he was still on Tatooine.

- Johnson apparently having another vision than Abrams and skipping and/or altering concepts from TFA.

The one scene of the movie I actually liked which was both somewhat cute and funny (though it was also over the top) was the scene on Ahch-To with the Porgs (which I liked) and Chewie on the Falcon. And it was good to see Yoda (despite of how the scene played out).

I can't honestly see an arc for Rey that will be followed through in Episode IX. In TFA and TLJ she was trying to understand and to find her place. Sh'e no nearer to that at the end of TLJ. What will Episode IX even be about? Rose being jealous at Rey?

- The so-called "humor" in the movie, from the beginning to the end, is awful. The worst is the awful treatment of General Hux, who went from a very young, but still menacing, Fascist-like military leader to a joke. From the ridiculous "General Hugs", "I'll hold" and "Your Mother"-'joke' to the scene in the Gorilla walker... This is a Star Wars movie, not Spaceballs 2. Took me right out of the movie at both the theater and at home (but then I knew it was coming of course). Is Johnson familiar with the word 'tone'?

This was a puzzling choice given that this is the ESB of this triloy, the darker chapter. So why such a push for humor, and in such a forced manner? Like you've said, the worst part of the early humor with Hux is that it completely undermines him as a villain/threat. The chase plot had plenty of other problems with it, but it doesn't help that the guy leading the chase is portrayed as a useless buffoon at the outset. Is it worth it to destroy his character just for a few laughs?

Yeah, I struggled with trying to figure that out, too. It was portrayed as though Poe was going against orders, acting in rogue fashion. Which is fine if its just him. But a bomber fleet is a pretty massive thing to coordinate. So was the entire bomber squadron in on this, but somehow not Leia and the others? And would they all really be doing this if Leia, Ackbar, and others weren't in favor? Who was ultimately in command?

- The boring and minimalistic version of the chase in the nBSG episode "33" that also changes the rule for Star Wars (bubble shields á la Star Trek and turbolasers that go in a curve). The chase is also contrived: Why can't some of the Star Destroyers jump ahead of the "fleet" and cut it off? Why don't use some of the TIE-fighters that could disable the bridge to disable their engines? It's neither exciting nor visually interesting and is completely devoid of energy. It's simply the most boring space battle of the saga so far.

It was an odd choice to strip away tension by not having them gain ground on the resistance. The scenario in "33" was so effective because the cylons were all over the human fleet every 33 minutes. That put the fleet under tremendous strain and created high stakes. I'm not sure why TLJ didn't go there.

- Admiral Party Dress not doing anything to inspire confidence in her puny force or at least saying that she has a plan of some kind. In that context, Poe's action makes sense. Holdo was a poor leader.

Plotting it out just to preserve for the twist/surprise at the end that Holdo did have a good plan didn't make anyone look good. Felt like the resistance wasn't capable of communicating. That goes all the way back to the bomber thing at the beginning, too. I'd rather have had tension from the First Order fleet being all over the Resistance ships than fake drama within the Resistance fleet that didn't really make sense in the end. When Poe at that end hears from Leia what the plan is and responds with an immediate "that could work", I was exasperated. Yeah, if these characters were actually talking to one another, we wouldn't have needed all the melodrama.

- Holdo, besides how the character was used to create meaningless drama as I hinted at above, was a very ambiguous character. To have her commit the act of self-sacrifice was just... Why not Ackbar? Or both? At least there would've been someone along who the audience has some connection with.

Maybe this was more of Johnson "subverting" expectations.

- The character assassination of Luke Skywalker. I've never been much of a fan of Luke, but what was done with his character in TLJ was just awful and then I don't refer to Grumpy Luke...

Luke Skywalker, who never knew his father Anakin, but still was able to sense that there was good in Vader, considered to murder his own nephew in cold blood! It's quite frankly outrageous! Luke's character had become one of redemption by ROTJ. If Snoke and Rey could sense Kylo's conflict, how come Luke didn't? Not only that, but he actually LIED to Rey on how Ben finally went over to the Dark Side and blamed everyone else for his predicament. In short: He's also a coward besides being a liar (it wasn't even a justified "a different point of view"-lie).

It was disheartening to see. I was so glad to see Mark Hamill speak out on "Jake Skywalker", though I was very bummed that he felt he needed to apologize later. Actors should be speaking their minds on things like this. He was dead on about it.

't see Adam Driver as the son of Han and Leia. He does a fair job, buuut. And what happened to Kylo's Vader fetish that was a point in TFA?

Another thing Johnson didn't like. He tossed away the helmet, and that was that as far as the Vader worship.

Speaking of the codebreaker, Finn and Rose attempted to flee Canto Blight without the codebreaker. Huh?

They saw another opportunity for a joke with Finn and Rose telling Poe they had a codebreaker. Okay, I had to laugh a bit at that, though it did nothing to make that whole side trip seem worth it.

- What the heck does Luke mean when he says about Rey's strength in the Force that he has "only felt the raw strength once before" and that was in Ben Solo? What about Vader? What about Palpatine?

This felt like Spock's line in STID about Khan being "the most dangerous" threat the Enterprise had ever faced. Using a line of dialogue to try to drum up the feeling of something massive here.

- The Yoda scene. A puppet was made from the original cast, but it doesn't look that good. Apparently it had some CG "enhancements". And why Crazy Yoda? Yoda tested Luke in TESB, we have not seen him act that way before or since. And ghost-Yoda summoning lightning? Again changing the rules...

I didn't have any issue with how the puppet looked, but summoning lightning did bother me. As did how quickly Yoda could make Luke see reality when everything earlier in the movie didn't. I'll say again that I'd have preferred the combination of Rey/Chewie/R2/Leia recording earlier in the movie getting through to Luke and avoiding the need for Yoda later.

- Phasma ended up like Boba Fett... What a waste!

I never much cared for Fett and kind of enjoyed him being tossed away early in ROTJ given all the ridiculous fan love for him. So I don't mind that with Phasma as we hardly saw much that was meaningful with her anyway.

- TLJ is the only saga movie without a lightsaber duel.

We did get a great fight with Rey and Ren against Snoke's guards. I'd have loved a lightsaber fight at the end, but I get what Johnson was going for with the end Ren/Skywalker "fight".